School Crisis Planning: Questions and Answers

Scott Poland, NCSP
President, NASP
Member, NEAT Team

Does your school have a viable crisis plan? Is there a team with well-defined roles? Does every school staff member understand the plan? The best time to initiate or revamp your school's crisis plan is now– not in the middle of a crisis! This article provides answers to commonly asked questions about establishing school crisis teams and procedures.

How do I get started?
A mandate for crisis planning is necessary from the top down. The school superintendent should hold building principals accountable for crisis planning and school safety. It is important that each school review any crises with which they have already dealt and consider these key questions:
• What worked well?
• What did not work?
• What did we learn?
• How can we prevent a crisis of this type in the future?

Crisis planning involves hard work and there is no shortcut. Many schools simply want to copy another school's plan or send out a listing of crisis team members. Each school needs to do the homework and spend time on crisis planning. Everyone needs to understand his/her role.

What theoretical model should guide crisis planning?
Using Caplan's model, there are three levels of crisis intervention:
• Primary Prevention: activities designed to prevent a crisis from occurring.
• Secondary prevention: steps taken in the immediate aftermath of the crisis to minimize the effects.
• Tertiary prevention: provides long-term follow-up to those most affected.

What are the leading causes of death for children?
1. Accidents
2. Homicide
3. Suicide

Unfortunately, the annual death rate is 1 in 1,000 high school students, 1 in 3,000 junior high students and 1 in 4,000 elementary students. Emphasizing primary prevention activities means creating curriculum programs to address the leading causes of death, including programs in:
• Safe driving
• Bicycle safety
• Gun safety
• Decision-making
• Anger management
• Violence prevention
• Suicide prevention

Who should be on a school crisis team?
Team members should have the desire to be on the crisis team and should possess personal characteristics such as remaining calm in a crisis and good speaking skills.

Should every school building have its own crisis team?
Every school should have key staff members who are involved in crisis planning. Three options in creating a crisis team include:
1. Building Crisis Team-- There are many advantages if a building is large enough to have personnel such as nurses, counselors/psychologists and security in addition to administrators. All building personnel are acquainted with each other, the student body and the community. Scheduling a meeting of the crisis team is not difficult. Building personnel may also work on primary prevention activities.
2. District Team-- It may be necessary for key personnel such as security, counseling and nursing to come from another location in the school system with the purpose of supporting the building administrator. A disadvantage is that personnel may not be well acquainted and may be unaware of the specifics of the affected school.
3. District/Community Team -- Key people such as law enforcement, medical and mental health personnel are not employees of the school system. Careful planning sessions are mandatory.

How large should a crisis team be?
A minimum of four and maximum of eight members are needed. Key duties to be covered include: medical, counseling/psychological, security, parent communication and campus communication.

How important is an emergency signal?
Every school must have a clear emergency signal that is understood by all staff. All school personnel must know the "lock down" procedures to insure student safety. School personnel should keep all students in a protected location until the building administrator gives an "all clear" signal or communication.

What constitutes a good evacuation plan?
All school personnel should know exactly where to direct students when an evacuation order is issued. Each school should make arrangements to use nearby neighborhood and community facilities for evacuation as much as possible. Additional suggestions:
• Create an administrative crisis box to take with you in the event of evacuation containing: a copy of emergency cards for each student and staff member, flashlights, bullhorns, portable phone, paper and writing instruments, crisis team badges and distinctive clothing such as a hat or vest to be worn by crisis team members.
• Classroom teachers should create a classroom tote tray containing activities to occupy students during a lengthy evacuation to a nearby facility. Small children (Pre-K to 1st grade) may need to bring items from home that would comfort them such as stuffed animals, family photos, etc.
• Secretarial staff should have supplies such as bug spray, sunscreen and bottled water to be taken outside in the event of an evacuation.

Should I evacuate school if a bomb threat is called in?
Administrators make this decision based on these factors: age of caller, unrest in the community and weather conditions. Approximately 100 bombs of some type go off in schools each year. No data are available on the number of bomb threats received in the approximately 94,000 schools in the U.S. Some schools are requiring students to make up lost academic time from bomb threat evacuation by taking away scheduled holidays or by requiring students to do classwork while awaiting the signal to return to the school building. Close collaborative relations between local police and school administrators in all aspects of crisis planning are important, especially in bomb threat management procedures.

The school receptionist should have a standardized form to record time of day, background noises and voice characteristics of the person calling in the bomb threat. The caller should be asked logical questions about the type of bomb and when it is set to detonate.

What must be done first in the aftermath of a crisis?
The administrator/principal must take charge. Top priorities include assuring that medical and security needs are met and that identification information accompanies anyone who is injured/killed. Three waves of people will descend on the school and the building principal must delegate crisis team members to manage these three waves:
• Police and medical
• Media
• Parents

Address the following key practical questions:
• Do we close school early or cancel for the next day? (Hopefully not, as many students will be unsupervised at home.)
• Do we change the bell schedule and class schedule?
• How do we get facts about the crisis to parents, as well as information on how they can help their children? (Note sent home with students, schedule parent meeting, etc.)
• How do we isolate and support school personnel or students who are interviewed by police?
• How do we contain the media?

What are the key roles of various school personnel in dealing with large-scale emotionality?
Principal's Role in a Crisis:
• Direct the crisis team and take charge of the situation.
• Be visible, available, supportive.
• Dispel rumors by giving everyone the facts.
• Communicate with Central Administration and School Board.
• Contact family(ies) of the deceased.
• Provide updated information to all concerned.

Psychologist's / Counselor's/Social Worker's Role in a Crisis:
• Be available.
• Cancel other activities.
• Locate counseling space.
• Get counseling, secretarial assistance.
• Contact parents of affected students.
• Follow schedule of deceased student.
• Support the faculty.
• Contact feeder schools.

Teacher's Role in a Crisis:
• Provide accurate information to students.
• Lead class discussions.
• Dispel rumors.
• Answer questions.
• Model an appropriate response.
• Give permission for a range of emotions.
• Identify students who need counseling.
• Provide activities to reduce trauma and express emotions through artwork, music, writing.
• Set aside curriculum as needed.
• Discuss funeral procedures including customs and etiquette.
• Encourage parents to accompany their children to funerals.

Why are crisis drills important?
Historically schools have had fire drills as frequently as once a month. It is obvious that fires are not the only, or the most common, crisis situation in the schools. By simply reading the newspaper, one can learn the types of crisis situations that have occurred in the schools. School crisis plans must be more than pages in a notebook gathering dust on a shelf. Crisis plans must be an ongoing, evolving part of conducting school. Crisis drills make crisis plans come alive, and schools learn from them! Suggestions for conducting crisis drills:
• Begin with paper and pencil discussion activities.
• Have crisis team anticipate five different school crisis situations.
• Each team member writes down duties that he/she would anticipate performing; the team discusses each scenario.
• Each semester, choose one scenario to act out.
• Inform parents of the importance of crisis drills in local media articles.
• Take precautions against unnecessarily alarming students, staff and parents.
• Inform parents, local agencies that drills are being conducted.
• Avoid using dramatic props such as starter pistols or simulated blood.
• Place a sign in the area designating that a crisis drill is being conducted.
• Practice drills that involve moving staff and students to a safe location.
• Crisis team should receive written and verbal feedback about the management of the crisis.

What are recommendations from schools that have experienced severe crisis situations?
• You must recognize that it could happen to you.
• No two crisis situations are alike, but what you learn in one situation will help you deal with future situations.
• Each person must understand his/her role in a crisis.
• School crisis plans must be reviewed at least once a year.
• Everyone must be alert.
• School safety is an inside job that involves a committed student body, staff and community.

What are the key points in public relations?
Before a crisis occurs, focus on school safety planning in parent newsletters. Create a school safety task force that involves the community, parents, students and teachers. When a crisis occurs, it is important to:
• Mobilize quickly.
• Involve top administrators who go to the scene.
• Show concern to all.
• Share information.

How can we manage the media?
• Establish positive relationships with local media.
• Select and train a media spokesperson for each building or district.
• Write a media policy that clarifies what the media will and will not be allowed to do.
• The policy should be a cooperative one that sets limits such as no roaming halls or filming grieving students.
• Avoid refusing to cooperate with the media and be prepared to use your authority to ban them from campus if it becomes necessary. The excessive numbers of media personnel sent to Jonesboro, Arkansas, for instance, necessitated banning the media from school grounds.
• Recognize that you can utilize the media to dispense important information regarding community assistance.
• Emphasize preparatory actions taken by your district and the support being provided to staff and students.
• Grant reasonable interview requests.
• Clarify media procedures to all school staff.
• Designate a certain room to receive media representatives. The central office may be the best location.
• Central office personnel may need to manage media requests so that the building principal can attend to other duties.
• Provide a written statement supporting and clarifying verbal statements.
• Obtain parent permission prior to releasing any student photographs.
• Prior to releasing student's name to media, notify his/her family.

How can schools improve their communication systems?
• Have necessary equipment on hand: private phone line, portable or cellular phones, fax machines, computers, bullhorns and two-way radios.
• Modernize intercoms so that each classroom can communicate ith the office and vice versa.
• Communicate with portable buildings, playgrounds via outside speakers.
• Have clear emergency signal that is understood by everyone. Clarify, simplify and rehearse the emergency signal.

But what if I don't have an intercom or a phone in my classroom?
Each teacher should designate a responsible student and train him/her how to get assistance in an emergency. The teacher has his/her name on a key ring in red and in blue. If there is a medical emergency, the teacher tears off the red tag that has the teacher's name on it and sends it with the responsible student for help. The blue tag means behavioral or safety emergency that requires administrative assistance. This process should be rehearsed.

How do children typically respond to a crisis or disaster?
Their responses fall into four main categories:
• Fear of the future
• Behavioral regression
• Academic regression
• Nightmares and/or night terrors

How can we help children after a tragedy?
It is important to give them the facts in age-appropriate terms and to give them permission for a range of emotions. Every child has a story to tell and we need to listen and answer questions. The National Organization for Victim Assistance (NOVA) Model of Group Crisis Intervention has many applications for use in the schools. Each student and teacher in a classroom sits in a circle and the facilitator begins by asking sensory perception questions, thus guiding students to a discussion of emotions, prediction of the future and identification of coping skills. Additional information on this model, with which many school psychologists are familiar, is available at 1-800-TRY-NOVA. It is also very important that students have the opportunity to express emotions through artwork, music and writing. Meetings between school staff and parents are important to help them understand the typical reactions of children and to provide the adults with guidance to help the children.

Resources

Poland, S. , Pitcher, G. & Lazarus, P. (1995). Best practices in crisis intervention. In A. Thomas & J. Grimes (Eds.), Best practices in school psychology-III (pp.445-458). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.

Young, M. (1998). Community crisis response training manual. Washington, DC: NOVA.

Scott Poland is President of NASP and a member of the National Emergency Assistance Team for NASP. He led the NOVA national crisis teams in Paducah, Kentucky and Jonesboro, Arkansas following school shootings. He is the author or co-author of numerous books, chapters and articles on crisis intervention, including three NASP Best Practices chapters. He recently published School Violence: Lessons Learned (1998, Sopris West).